Shut up.
You shut up.
I blinked and cleared my mind.
"I hadn’t thought about that before you asked,” I said. "Will I be safe walking the corridors of this ship?"
"Yes," Torvyn said. "Because at least one of us will be with you at all times."
I started to argue, but Lyrin cut me off.
"This isn't a personal decision, Kira, it's a professional one. You, the woman we love, aren’t who we are protecting. You, one of the leaders of the Starbreaker, are."
"Will the crew see it that way?" I asked. "Or will they just see the Zorathi Knights giving special treatment to a human woman who has caused everybody here a lot of pain and suffering?"
"The Starbreaker is not a democracy," Torvyn said. "We will take appropriate measures to keep everyone safe."
"We have already started," Vaelix said. "I placed the ship on a communications blackout the moment Voss announced the bounty change. Every message sent is now filtered through the primary system. Any suspicious messages will be flagged, and the sender will be addressed appropriately."
I looked at the star map again, at all the stations that had been friendly yesterday and were question marks today. We'd need to contact each one. I already knew what we'd find.
"How many more calls do we need to make?" I asked.
"Seven stations within reasonable range," Vaelix said.
"Then let's get started." I pulled up the next contact. "I want to know exactly how small our world just got."
The calls blurred together. Same sympathetic faces. Same apologetic refusals. Of the seven stations we'd contacted, five had given us variations of Granthol's answer: the Knights and the Starbreaker were welcome, but my presence made docking impossible. The other two hadn't answered at all, which told me everything I needed to know.
I stood on the bridge and turned the situation over in my head. The bridge crew worked at their stations, but I felt their attention. Sideways glances. Conversations that shut down when I walked by. They had all seen the broadcast, and now they were doing the math.
"I need everyone's attention," I said.
Stations went quiet. The bridge crew turned to face me. Faces I'd come to know over the past months, some friendly, some neutral. They all regarded me with the same guarded expression.
"You've all seen Director Voss's broadcast. You know what he's offering." I kept my voice level. "I'm not going to pretend that number isn't significant. It would change anyone's life. It would change your family's life."
No one spoke.
Good. I needed them to hear this.
"Here's what that bounty means operationally. Five of seven allied stations have declined to allow us to dock as long as I'm aboard. Our supply options have shrunk. Our safe transit corridors have narrowed. Every risk calculation this ship makes now includes my presence as a destabilizing variable." I paused. "That's the plain truth."
Torvyn stepped forward, but I held up a hand.
I needed to be the one to say this.
"I'm telling you this because you deserve the truth. Voss didn't triple my bounty because I'm a terrorist. He tripled it because I know how to stop him. He wants me alive and unharmed. He wants what's in my head." I tapped my temple. "The Knights, the Starbreaker, he'll take you dead. He needs me alive. That should tell you everything about what he's actually afraid of."
A young engineer shifted at his station. I met his eyes directly.
"If anyone here is calculating whether to turn me in, I won't insult you by pretending I don't understand, but let me tell you something about Director Voss, based on my personal experiences with him." I stepped forward. "The Corporate Council doesn't honor deals with people it considers beneath them. You turn me in, you'll get a fraction of that bounty and a target on your back. They'll assume you know what I know. They'll wonder what I told you."
I let that sink in.
"I'm not asking for loyalty based on sentiment. I'm asking you to recognize that Voss's strategy isn't about me; it's about fracturing this crew. It’s about ending the threat to the corporation’s rule. He wants you looking over your shoulders. He wants the Knights distracted, protecting me instead of fighting him. He wants us to tear ourselves apart so he doesn't have to."
I turned back to the display, studying the scattered markers of stations that had closed their doors.
